Latin American Liberation and Renewal Theology

Abstract

Pneumatology has experienced a renaissance perpetuated by a number of factors such as the rapid growth of p entecos tal and charismatic movements around the globe, the focus on the Spirit at Vatican II, and the reappropriation of the Spirit in movements like feminist theology. The impacts of these twentieth-century movements and their pneumatological discourses have forced other theological schools to deal with the Spirit. Latin American Liberation Theology (LALT) is one such school. While original versions of LALT tended to be more centered on Christology and anthropology, the Holy Spirit has been reclaimed by scholars such as Jose Comblin, Jon Sobrino, and Leonardo Boff.1 The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate the points of intersection and difference in the pneumatologies of LALT and renewal theology. I propose that renewal theology provides a middle ground between the historical pneumatology of LALT and more traditional, transcendent pneumatologies“from above” against which Latin American Liberation pneumatologies react. I argue that such theological exchange can prove fruitful to both theological currents. In the first section of this paper, I will provide a survey of LALT’s pneumatology. In the second section, I will put it in dialogue with renewal theology, through examining the works of Steven Land, Eldin Villafane, and Samuel Solivan.2